During television coverage of the Sydney 2000 Olympics, in September of 2000, NBC ran an advertisement for Lucent featuring two businessmen, located in different countries getting into the back seats of vehicles and playing an interactive racing game against each other over a wireless telecommunications network. It was implied in the commercial that data reflecting each player's racing maneuvers was being sent to each player's handheld device in real-time. As the game action progressed, both businessmen were beaten by an unknown third player: “Red Falcon.” The shot then shifted to two young girls standing on a sidewalk somewhere in Asia, celebrating their victory as Red Falcon. The two men then looked quizzically at their respective screens and, in their respective languages, say: “Who is Red Falcon?”
The advertisement depicted a real-time, live-action, multi-player game featuring high-resolution, color graphics. It was implied by the commercial that the system in which all of the players were operating was capable of providing a steady stream of game data (content) that enabled the players to perceive that the game action was uninterrupted. Although the scenario was fictional, it is still instructive of desirable aspects of an interactive wireless communications system having content provision capabilities. As is evident from the commercial, it would be desirable to have a system that provides real-time interaction with other portable communications device users who have like interests, such as racing games. It would also be desirable for the gentlemen who were beaten by Red Falcon to have been included in a game with players of a like (and apparently lower) skill level. Both of these desirable features are met by the various embodiments of the present invention.
The Applicants are not aware of any systems that currently offer users with like interests real-time, live-action, interactive services, such as gaming, with high graphic resolution, over a wireless communications network. The closest thing to such a system that Applicants are aware of is disclosed in published European Patent Application No. 00660125.6, Publication No. EP 1 066 868 A2 (Published: Jan. 10, 2001; Filed Jul. 5, 2000), entitled “Multi-player Game System Using Mobile Telephone and Game Unit,” and assigned to Nokia Corporation.
State of the art wireless entertainment is further exemplified by Nintendo Corporation's recent announcement that it will be releasing a wireless-enabled Game Boy brand device, under the name AGame Boy Advance.@ Nintendo has announced that it will form a joint venture, Mobile 21, with Konami to develop software for the new game player. The Game Boy Advance device reportedly will use a 32-bit RISC CPU developed by Cambridge, UK based ARM corporation, a well-known developer of CPUs for cellular phones. In addition, the Game Boy Advance device reportedly will be able to connect to a cellular phone (or a PHS phone in Japan) to access the Internet, thus allowing users to download game software, participate in multi-player games, chat, and exchange E-mail. Use of a planned digital camera accessory would enable the user to see the face of the person they are playing against.
Nintendo has also announced that it intends to add a communications feature to the Game Boy game system, making the Game Boy Advance system a personal communications terminal, as well as a gaming system. The company reports specifically that it intends to enable multi-player gaming. The present inventors believe that the foregoing described Game Boy Advance system exemplifies the type of system that will benefit from the present invention.
The Assignee of the present application has made significant advances in the “real-time” and “live-action” interactive aspects of such an overall system, which are described in co-pending U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/252,468, filed Nov. 22, 2000, entitled “Method and System for Providing interactive Services Over a Wireless Communications Network”; U.S. Provisional Patent Application filed Apr. 13, 2001, entitled “Method and System for Mediating Interactive Services Over a Wireless Communications Network”; and U.S. Provisional Patent Application filed Apr. 13, 2001, entitled “Method and System for Improving the Efficiency of State Information Transfer Over a Wireless Communications Network,” each of which is incorporated by reference herein.
The focus of the present application, however, is on the creation and maintenance of affinity groups of portable communications device users and the transmission of selected content to these users based on their membership in the affinity groups. These affinity groups may group users on the basis of their having like characteristics or interests, or potentially on the basis of their having dissimilar characteristics or interests. Alternatively, users may “self-select” themselves for inclusion in an affinity group. Such an affinity group may have benefited the gentlemen discussed above, who were beaten by Red Falcon, by grouping them with other racing game aficionados of like skill level, age, experience, etc.
While the existence of such affinity groups will certainly facilitate gaming applications such as the one described above, it is evident that the usefulness of such groups extends well beyond the wireless gaming world and is applicable to any system in which content can be targeted to a group of portable communications device users. Thus, although the use of affinity groups is discussed herein using a gaming example, it is appreciated that such groups may be used in many other applications such as in the provision of information or applications (referred to collectively as “content”) relating to news, sports, finances, job listings, goods, services, advertisements, social networking, gaming, lifestyle, etc.
The need for an effective method and system for identifying and maintaining affinity groups is evident from the planned release of systems such as the Game Boy Advance system. In a May 1999 report, Fairfield Research estimated that ten (10) million U.S. households currently play games online. Moreover, Fairfield estimates that garners have increased their playing time by twenty percent (20%) in the past year and will increase it by another seventeen percent (17%) in the coming year. Eighty percent (80%) of respondents expressed interest in downloading additional game levels and options from the internet. Sixty-six percent (66%) of online gaming time is spent playing other garners. Although wireless interactive game technology is in its infancy, the subscriber demand is understood to be enormous. Based upon Game Boy sales alone, which are over one hundred (100) million, the demand for interactive entertainment services is substantial and is expected to remain robust. The present inventors estimate that the market for such services may exceed five (5) billion dollars within the next five to ten years.
Looking beyond the gaming example for the moment, there are many uses for affinity groups. They may be used to:                facilitate communication between and content delivery to users who have selected themselves to receive the certain information, whether it be news, sports, game initiation and invitation notices, game applications, personal messages, advertisements, sales offers, etc.;        facilitate communication between and content delivery to users with the same interests or preferences as indicated by a user profile, whether it be sports, games, travel, etc. interests;        facilitate communication between and content delivery to users with the same capabilities, whether they be physical or mental;        facilitate communication between and content delivery to users with the same or compatible wireless communications devices (e.g. telephones);        facilitate communication between and content delivery to users having like, or purposefully dissimilar, demographics (such as geographic location, income, education, family structure, age, ethnicity, religion, sex, etc.); and        facilitate communication between work groups for collaborative purposes.        
Affinity groups may be created primarily as the result of compiling user profile information. An exemplary profile engine for the collection and maintenance of user profiles, and which may be used to carry out the various embodiments of the present invention, is described in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/213,387 filed Dec. 10, 1998, entitled “System and Method for Providing Targeted Messages Based on Wireless Mobile Location,” which is assigned to the Assignee of the present application and which is incorporated by reference herein. Other exemplary profile engines (which are not intended to be limiting) for the collection, maintenance, and/or use of user profiles, and which may be used to carry out the various embodiments of the present invention, are described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,108,645 (Aug. 22, 2000) to Eichstadt et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,995,943 (Nov. 30, 1999) to Bull et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,134,532, (Oct. 17, 2000) to Lazarus et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,828,843 (Oct. 27, 1998) to Grimm et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,023,729 (Feb. 8, 2000) to Samuel et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,024,643 (Feb. 15, 2000) to Begis, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,128,660 (Oct. 3, 2000) to Grimm et al., each of which is incorporated by reference herein.
User profiles, like users, are subject to change over time. Accordingly, Applicants have determined that there is a need for a system that not only uses user profiles to provide affinity groups, but is also capable of creating and revising such profiles, and thus groups, (preferably in real-time) on an on-going basis. This need arises from the constant change in the users who subscribe to such an affinity group system on a long term basis, the ever changing users who are presently “live” on the network, users' updating of their own profiles, and profile updates that result from the systems collection of data about users.
The system's ability to collect data relating to users' recent actions (e.g. buying patterns, shopping patterns, eating patterns, location patterns, travel patterns, communication patterns, game statistics, etc.) provides the system with heuristic capabilities (i.e. the ability to learn and predict user behaviors). The heuristic capabilities of the system may be used to anticipate the behavior of individuals in an affinity group and/or group behaviors. To this end, embodiments of the present invention may record, on an on-going basis, which users subscribe to an affinity group service, which users are live on the system, which users have updated profile information, and what, where, and when has a user bought, shopped, ate, stayed, traveled, won, lost, or played a game, etc.
Applicants have also determined that various embodiments of the present invention may benefit from the inclusion of a means for identifying the location of the user and adapting services rendered to the user and the affinity groups to which the user may be joined based on the user's location. Examples of wireless communications systems including means for identifying the location of a handheld device (primarily through use of GPS) are legion in the art. Applicants incorporate by reference herein the following co-pending applications, which are assigned to the Assignee of the present invention, and which disclose location determination systems for use with wireless telephones: U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/768,305, filed Jan. 25, 2001, entitled “Knowledge-Based Information Retrieval System and Method for Wireless Communication Device,” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/384,686, filed Aug. 27, 1999, entitled “Location-Based Information Retrieval System for Wireless Communication Device.”
Applicants note that the inclusion of a user in an affinity group may also result from the initiative of a user notwithstanding the lack of an indication in their profile that the group would be of interest to them. That is, even if a user's profile would not normally result in the selection by the system of that user for a particular affinity group, the user may override the system and join or become part of an affinity group anyway.
The present invention addresses the problem of how to create and manage an interactive community cost effectively. In particular, the present invention offers an interactive experience, in which the action and content delivery may be initiated and maintained between affinity groups of users of like characteristics, interests and/or capabilities. Embodiments of the present invention may be used to improve definition and management of these affinity groups. This may enable a wireless communications operator to provide a higher quality interactive experience with the same investment of network resources. This also may make it possible for an operator to provide a wireless game service to end users at a flat monthly rate rather than on a per unit of time consumed basis. In this regard, the pricing model of Assignee=s Cricket wireless telecommunications services may preferably be adopted.